


these words we speak (we savor them)

by Someone_aka_Me



Series: Soulmate AUs [11]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, kind of a suicide although it's more of a refusal to put off death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 14:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15910179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Someone_aka_Me/pseuds/Someone_aka_Me
Summary: Theo Nott has 106,729 words to speak before he dies. Only his soulmate can replenish them. Except, Theo doesn't want his soulmate. Theo just wants Blaise.





	these words we speak (we savor them)

Theo Nott is born with 106,729 words.

It's less than most people. But it's more than some.

He always kind of figured he'd find his soulmate and it wouldn't matter.

And it didn't matter growing up.

Theo and his sister grew up in a silent household. His parents weren't soulmates. His mother only saw her word count go up once, and it was in the presence of a Muggle man that she promptly abandoned and never sought out again. His father never saw his climb at all. Between them, they have maybe a million words left.

Theo has never heard either of them use one.

…

No one is sure where the words come from. All they know is that if the counter reaches zero, death is inevitable, and it always happens within the next few minutes.

Theo's counter is on his left wrist in dark burgundy marks. His father tells him they look like blood.

…

He learns sign growing up. He signs with his parents and his sister, and he and his sister go to classes, where they learn how to shape their mouths into words, learn from people who've found their soulmate what the words are supposed to sound like. Those who have found their soulmates are venerated, guardians of their language.

So Theo figures he'll be like most people. He'll go through life with sign and writing. He'll say a few words here or there — enough to let his counter go down so he can see if it fills back up.

And someday it will.

He doesn't plan for Blaise.

…

He doesn't plan to fall in love with Blaise.

Blaise is old money, the same kind of Pureblood as Theo, but he's nothing Theo is supposed to love. He's not what Theo plans for.

He doesn't plan to see Blaise stand by his side through a war. To stand by his side and watch as Theo makes the decision to fight against his father. To stand by his side as Theo watches his father fall at the end of his own wand.

Blaise holds him close in the aftermath and lets Theo mourn the father he never even loved, but still cared for as family.

And Theo, face muffled in Blaise's navy blue shirt, says his first words.

" _I love you_."

They feel weird on his tongue, in his throat. There's a rasp of disuse.

But at the same time, he feels the words fill the space between them. He feels their weight, in a way that nothing he's signed has ever had weight before.

He didn't expect that.

He didn't think it would be any different. But it is. Maybe because he knows how much they are worth.

"I think it's about time I told you," he adds. "I love you. I always have." He feels the way his throat shapes the words, feels the way they come from deep in his chest, vibrate all the way up. He savours them, taking in how luxurious they feel. Each and every one.

…

Most people, before they meet their soulmate, speak very little. But now that Theo knows what the words feel like, spilling into the spaces between them, filling them up with warm and light, he can't help himself. The truth spills out of him, welling up and overflowing. He doesn't have words to waste on lies.

Blaise keeps signing at him, telling him not to, but Theo… Theo  _loves_  him. And Theo is going to love him right. Going to love him with everything that he has.

Going to love him loudly and with feeling.

He learns the way "I love you" feels on his tongue, and he says it over and over and over again, relishes the way it sounds.

Blaise begs him to stop. Silently, and then with his words, because, in a move of pure irony by the universe, Blaise? Blaise has millions.

Theo doesn't care. Theo doesn't want to wait for someone else.

He uses them sparingly, and only ever for Blaise, but he uses them. One hundred and six thousand, seven hundred and twenty nine. It's not a lot of words. It's only enough for 35,000 "I love yous" and it doesn't seem like enough.

He says his first words after the war.

It takes him ten years to use the rest.

...

He wakes up one day to find Blaise crying beside him. He raises an eyebrow in question, and Blaise rubs a thumb over the burgundy 17 emblazoned on his wrist.

Theo smiles at him.

"It was worth it," he says, watching it tick down to 14. Blaise takes his hand.

"Theo," Blaise says, his voice shuddering, his wrist bearing a pale number that still has seven digits. So many words left to go. "Theo, please. Don't."

"It was worth it to love you right," Theo says. Six left. It doesn't feel like watching them go up in smoke. It feels like using them well.

Blaise's teeth are sunk into his lip.

"You could've stayed," Blaise says. "You could've stayed with me. We could've had so much time."

Theo just smiles, sad and bittersweet.

"Blaise," he says, and he savours the way Blaise's name feels in his mouth.

He and Blaise see things differently.

Theo would rather have ten years lived right, lived to the fullest, lived loving Blaise with all that he is and all that he has, than an eternity staying silent — not knowing how Blaise's name tastes on his tongue, not knowing how it feels to gasp "I love you" into the space between their lips.

He won't give an apology. Because he's not sorry.

It was worth it. He believes that, more than he's ever believed anything.

"Blaise," he says again. "Blaise." He has three words left, and he's always known what they were going to be — the same as his first. He lifts a hand to Blaise's cheek, touches him with the same softness he always has because Blaise deserves to be cherished.

"Please," Blaise says, one last time.

"I love you," Theo says. The words swell up, occupy the space between them, warm him to the core.

He knows his counter has ticked down to zero, but he doesn't look at it. He doesn't take his eyes away from Blaise's.

"I love you," Blaise says, desperately, as though he can force the words to replenish Theo's — the last desperate bid of a man who knows it isn't going to work. "I love you. I love you."

Theo smiles. And then his eyes close.

He doesn't regret a thing.


End file.
